Trick Stairs and Memories
by Ariel Weathers
Summary: It's Lily Evans' birthday. On her way back from the library, right before curfew, she gets stuck in one of Hogwarts' many trick stairs. While waiting for help to arrive, she reminisces about about all of the times her friends had gotten stuck in trick stairs. Also on AO3.


It had been a long day. That was all that Lily could blame on getting stuck in that _damn_ trick stair. The day had started out like any other day in the life of Lily Evans:

She awoke, like she did every day, at 6 30 AM sharp. Alice and Marlene constantly complained about Lily's eagerness to wake up two and a half hours before classes, but had learned to keep their mouths shut in the vicinity of the redheaded witch. Lily would then take a shower, put on her uniform, organise the items she needed for the whole day of classes and descended the stairs to the Great Hall at 7 15.

Most students didn't even think about waking up until 7 30, so the Great Hall was, as usual, quiet, which let Lily eat in peace. Once she had finished her breakfast, which was always a bowl of cereal, a piece of buttered toast and a glass of pumpkin juice, and made her way back up to the common room. By this time, there were always a fair few students roaming the halls and chatting in the common room, and many of them said hello to Lily as she passed them.

When the Head Girl reached the common room, her day started to get alarmingly off schedule. What was usually scattered pairs or groups of three having pleasant conversation was now absolute chaos. The majority of the Gryffindor house were standing in the common room, sporting bed hair and faded pyjamas, shouting at everyone around them. Lily pushed her way rather violently through the swarm of students with her fingers in her ears. When she reached the highest table in the common room, she stepped up onto it and shouted at the crowds.

"SHUT UP NOW!" Everyone stopped bickering almost immediately as they recognised the voice of the Head Girl. They did not recognise it from being scolded often (the exception to that being the Marauders, but they were currently nowhere to be seen) but from her long, loud arguments with her fellow Head Student - James Potter.

James and Lily were famous at Hogwarts for many things, but they were most famous for their fights. They were mostly verbal, with occasional hexes being sent in the Head Boys direction. Admittedly, the pair had not fought as much that year, as they had a mutual agreement as Head Students that they needed to set an example.

"What is going on?" She said evenly, after she was sure everyone in the common room was listening. When no one spoke, and they were all looking at the ground, Lily repeated her statement with a bit more authority. Still, no one said a thing. Lily sighed in frustration as she hopped down from the table and walked through the crowd, who now parted to let her through. She was soon standing in front of Alice, who looked up at her and sighed, flicking her head towards the stairs. Lily nodded, and turned to the rest of the crowd.

"What are you all standing there for? Class is starting soon and none of the Professors particularly want to see you get to class late."

All at once, the room started to move towards either the stairs or the portrait hole. In a matter of seconds, the room was empty save Alice, Lily and Remus, who had walked over to help Alice explain the predicament.

"It was the Marauders" Alice said, at the same time Remus said, "It was us."

Lily pressed her lips into a small line and looked at Remus. "I thought you'd stopped your pranks."

Remus chuckled softly and replied with a simple "So did I."

Lily looked between the two of them and when neither of them spoke, she prompted them to do so.

"James and Sirius, and I guess Peter in some regards," Remus paused and ran his hand through his hair, something he did when he was stressed. "They thought it would be a good idea to make sure everyone was up bright and early this morning."

Lily furrowed her brow, trying to think of what could have possibly been happening that day that was worth waking up for. Alice, seeing her best friends confusion, nudged Remus lightly and whispered in his ear.

"She's forgotten her own birthday," At this Remus smiled and started to laugh. He looked with pity at the redhead in front of him. He assumed her reason for forgetting her own birthday was the enormous workload that had been dumped upon her in recent weeks. Alice hit Remus softly in the arm, but she too wore a smile on her face. Lily had been oblivious of their actions for their entire exchange, as she was still too busy trying to remember the significance of the day.

"Lily" Alice waved in front of the girls eyes "Lily!"

With no response, Remus tried. "Lily! Lily, are you in there?"

After Lily still did not respond, Alice sighed. She knew what she had to do. She was Gryffindors greatest impressionist, so, in a voice that was almost exactly the same as James Potter's, she said, "Hey Evans, how are you on this fine morning?"

That snapped Lily out of her reverie, and she whipped around, trying to find the source of the voice she hated hearing.

"Chill, Lils. It's just me," Alice said, laughing. Lily glared at Alice before rolling her eyes. "What's the date, Lily?"

Lily frowned and checked her watch, which displayed the date. It read 'JAN 30'. "January 30th."

Alice stared blatantly, rather unimpressed at her best friend. Remus was trying to suppress his giggles. Lily narrowed her eyes at her two friends before marching up the stairs to her room, where she kept her diary. Throwing an apologetic look to Remus, who was unable to follow the girls, Alice ran up the stairs behind Lily. By the time Alice caught up to her, Lily was rummaging through her trunk, trying to find her diary.

When Lily finally found her diary, she calmed for a second while she ran her hand over the soft cover of it. When the moment had passed, she yanked the diary open and started to flip through the pages. When she got to the January 30th page, however, her wide eyes rolled and her open mouth scowled. She smacked a palm to her forehead and whirled around to face her best friend.

"He wanted to make sure everyone was up early on your birthday." Alice looked at Lily sympathetically, who just scowled more and stalked out of the room, not looking forward to what James had in store for her birthday.

Lily had charms first period that day, so she headed hastily for the classroom, not wanting to run into James or Sirius, who was undoubtably helping James with the day. She arrived at the classroom just as Professor Flitwick did, and she smiled politely at him. He let her into the classroom, and she smiled as she realised that she could pick any seat that she wanted.

She immediately weaved her way through the classroom to her favourite chair, off to the side of the classroom. It was padded and comfortable. It also happened to be Sirius' favourite chair, and Lily loved to wind him up.

Lily took her time getting out her homework and supplies for the lesson. Professor Flitwick assured Lily that the class would be doing at least partial practical work that lesson, and that brightened Lily's spirits.

"But there's a special twist today," the Professor said with a chuckle, "Mr. Potter and Mr. Black have requested something very interesting to do today."

At this, Lily's spirits were dampened. _If James and Sirius have anything to do with it_ , she thought, _it can't be good._

* * *

 **A/N:** I'm back! I actually wrote this ages ago and put it on AO3 like last year but I thought I'd put it on here as well. I don't know when it will get updated as not much more has been written but if I get a lot of feedback I will try to continue it as soon as possible.


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